10th Anniversary Trip: Redwood National Park and Northern California

This post will be a novel (take warning!) and a work-in-progress. Next step: narrative!

Chris and I celebrated our 10th anniversary by taking a surprise trip! Chris gave me a clue at each holiday for a year leading up to the trip, then told me the location a couple days before leaving. The clues were:

- West of the Mississippi River

- East of the Pacific

- North of Baja

- South of Alaska

- I'd need to pack hiking boots and a bathing suit

- ancient

- endangered

- less than 5,000 feet in elevation

We spent the week hiking through the Redwood National Park in northern California!

It was easy peasy flying without kids and every time we heard a kid whining or crying we would say thankfully, "Not our kid!" Meanwhile, our kids were well cared for by Gramps and Gramma. Willow had a bit of a harder time with us leaving (which we never do without them!) and woke up crying the morning we flew out (which was before she woke up) =(  We were able to either talk on the phone or see them on Skype most days. 

We stayed in Crescent City, CA and, unfortunately, they closed the local airport a couple months after Chris booked our flights. We ended up flying into Medford, OR then driving about 2 hours to Crescent City. It was easy to make the switch to the pacific time zone since we got to the hotel at midnight on our bodies. It was great to sleep in and stay up late! We had a great view of the Pacific Ocean from our 3rd floor room at Oceanfront Lodge:

and a great view for breakfast each morning:

It's hard to truly capture the size of the redwoods. We spent most of our week in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. We drove on Walker Road but quickly realized we spent most of our time doing this: 

Chris joked that having a rental car with a sunroof would've been nice, but truly we were better off getting out a walking through them. It was breathtaking...incredible...AWEsome...spectacular...  Their size made you feel like a tiny ant standing beside them. We kept saying, "Oh, that's the biggest one we've seen so far," but we'd quickly scratch that about one we saw a few minutes later. 

Chris' phone was able to do panoramic photos which did a good job of capturing the surroundings:

It was harder to capture the trees from bottom to top on the panoramic because of the difference in lighting, but this one is one of our favs: 

Peterson Memorial Trail and Simpson Reed Grove Trail

We loved the views looking up! (though it did take a toll on our necks!)

Redwood trees' bark is amazingly thick and rough looking! It burns slowly and is fairly fire-resistant which helps them to live so long!

Chris trying to capture one tree in a photo by getting on ground level =)

We don't have too many pictures together. Here's one from a self-timer since we were on a trail with no one else around: =)

Teeny tiny Kristen:

The weather was sunny and in the 60s all week. Chris and I dress for 60s differently ;) but I spent most of the week in pants with a couple layers on top. It was beautiful to see the sun peeking through the trees but it didn't happen often since the trees grow so close together. 

Since there's not a lot of sunlight that reaches the ground, most redwood trees do not grow from seeds. Even after a tree falls down, it will send up a new "stem" (aka tree) which benefits from the previous tree's existing root system. 

Plenty of other plants are happy to find their new home on a fallen redwood as well:

This is what we decided was the "biggest" single tree we saw:

Between the Stout Memorial Grove parking and the Summer Footbridge

If a redwood tree falls down in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? Yes, yes, I'm positive it does! How amazing would it be to see/hear it!!

Smith River

Smith River and Summer Footbridge

Chris takes a "shortcut" on the Hiouchi Trail (check out all those stems from the fallen tree!)

Chris feels "this big" between these two giants!

Beautiful green ferns blanket the floor throughout the park. A ranger told us that it's even greener during the rainy season (Dec/Jan). I can't even imagine!

This Battery Point Lighthouse is just a couple hundred yards from where we stayed. It's still in operation and run by volunteers each month. We actually met a retired couple who were going to be the August volunteers. What a fun retirement hobby! They give tours at low-tide since that's the only time of day when you can get to it! 

High Tide

Low Tide

Here's the view from the lighthouse. The hotel we stayed at is the building on the far right in the picture. 

We saw multiple pelicans feeding off the pier near the lighthouse. It was fun to watch them dive in for their catch!

The rocky coast was beautiful!

We found a lot of great sunset-watching spots!

Point St. George

We traveled south past Lagoon Creek to the "Trees of Mystery." They had a HUGE Paul Bunyan and Babe. Check out teeny tiny Kristen on Paul's foot:

The "Chapel Tree" where many people hold wedding ceremonies:

The skyline ride is part of your admission:

The view from the top of the skyride!

Check out the height difference between the "regular" trees and the redwoods! They're giants!!

You could either take the skyride back down, or do a 1/2 mile hike...only recommended for "experience hikers." We deemed ourselves "experienced" and took the hike down. It was definitely steep (which is hard to judge by the pictures)!

You would think that there'd be birds flying all through the redwood forests but we learned that they were actually very quiet with the main bird being the beautiful Stellar's Jay, which I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of. We also saw a lot of a small brown bird, which we never learned the name of, but did notice it never flew very high. Here's a video of a typical 360 view while on one of the trails. If you listen closely you can hear a few birds singing. 

There were two bugs that we saw on trails. One was a type of caterpillar/centipede which, of course, I couldn't find once I decided I needed to get a picture of one. The other is this Banana Slug. It's hard to judge the size in the picture, but this one was probably 3 inches long. Apparently they eat practically everything BUT redwood seeds, yet another reason why they're able to live so long!

More "trees from trees" craziness:

A very intricate chainsaw carving in a redwood (at Trees of Mystery):

A "timeline" shown on the stump of a redwood (at Trees of Mystery):

Klamath River Overlook

I had to find one of the drive-thru trees (this one in Klamath) since we did this as a kid (flashback pic still to be located). They advise you to fold in your mirrors and that's no joke! A full-size truck went through before us and likely would've torn his off if he hadn't!

We went on the Alder Camp Rd and Klamath Beach Road scenic drive and got out to check out the beach there since we were so close. It was a point where the Klamath River empties out into the Pacific. There were lots of people fishing but as we got to the beach we noticed harbor seals everywhere! Like 30-40 of them! They were just 15-30 feet off the shore and no one else was paying any attention to them. Clearly there was some good fishing right there despite the high tide and clearly they were used to "fishers" since this one popped up so close to Chris:

These guys were really hard to capture on camera since they only came up briefly (like trying to photograph whales!). We probably took over 150 pictures of them and had a good laugh looking back through the pictures (deleting MANY of them!). 

This was the type of fish they were catching. This one got washed up on shore but Chris aided it in getting back in the water. 

Castle Rock

Can you see the whale spout in the center of the picture? There was a mother whale and her calf that came around each day. 

We saw a few of these washed up on shore. I think they're kelp?! They were huge!

We even saw harbor seals in the ocean just off shore where we were staying. This one was happy to sun himself on a rock. Can you spy his friend's head in the water?

Redwoods have some seriously thick bark, as seen in this fallen tree. It aides in making them more fire resistant. 

Another shortcut:

Sometimes, instead of cutting through fallen trees, it's easier to make the hikers just duck under it:

Rather than ducking, Chris tries to aide in moving this fallen tree:

Sometimes, though, they'll cut a path for hikers:

This particularly "rooty" section of the trail stood out to us since it was surprisingly not typical of the many trails that we walked: 

Believe it or not, this is a redwood cone with seeds! Redwood seeds are the size of tomato seeds! Pretty amazing!

When redwood trees feel stressed or experience damage, they'll often create a burl (unfortunately no pics) or send out a new stem. Can you see the new stem that's grown up from the side branch?

Fern Falls at the end of the Boy Scout Trail (Jedediah Smith Park) (Of course there's a fallen tree in front of it!)

Again, seriously thick bark! This tree was growing fine despite this deep crevice in its bark!

We saw these clovers all over the parks. Their hidden secret is the purple on the underside of the leaves!

Ferns can apparently seed themselves upward?!?

Don't forget to look up now and then!

We loved this beautiful "pure redwoods and ferns" section of the Boy Scout Trail in Jedediah Smith Redwoods Park:

Near Castle Rock

The state park service offered a free 4-hr kayak trip to the first 10 people who signed up! What a deal! We missed out on our first attempt to sign up for the Friday trip since there was only one slot left, but showed up extra early to sign up for Saturday (and were #8 and #9!! whew!). 

We went on a 3-mile stretch of the Smith River. We pretty much just rode with the current which made it enjoyable to take in the scenery and learn a bit from our tour guide, who was a park ranger. There were a few rocky spots where we all got stuck and had to stand up and pull our kayak through due to the low river level, but we did get to enjoy the challenge of maneuvering a few little drops/rapids. (*Note to self: Next time wear ALL quick drying clothes!!*)

We saw some fun creatures while exploring the tide pools. 

Here are some snails and hermit crabs:

Crab (red shape in the middle):

Our trip was a beautiful mix of ocean and forest =)

On our last day we ventured down to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park hoping to see the majestic Roosevelt Elk and try out a few hikes. We were told that you'd know when there were elk because you'd see cars pulled off the highway, and she was right! These 4 elk were all 10-20 feet off the highway and not afraid to have their picture taken!

You gotta scratch your itch somehow!

These 4 ladies were a little further down the highway. The pic of me isn't great, but check out how close we were!

We took a short walk out to Fern Canyon and it was beautiful! There was a little stream running through the canyon with board walkways laid across to help you get deeper into the canyon. 

The five-fingered fern:

We went on a portion of the Trillium Falls Trail (only far enough to see the falls):

On the way out we saw a HUGE herd of elk just off the highway. I quickly counted 42!! The sad part was that they were totally unaffected by the multiple cars and people surrounding them on two sides. We've definitely taken the "wild" out of them =(

On our way back north we stopped at Enderts Beach to check out the tide pools there close to low tide. 

Sea urchins:

More colorful snails:

We caught a glimpse of this hermit crab walking on the sand. Willow and Owen's favorite video from our trip was this video of a hermit crab "attack."

Starfish!!!

We loved these rocks all along the shore by our hotel. We brought a few back for the kids!

The kids welcomed us back with a fun decorated door:

We also brought a redwood tree kit back with us. After planting the seeds, they have to be refrigerated for 20 days (to simulate winter) then are planted in a small container indoors. They are planted in gradually larger containers over the next 2 years before being able to be planted outdoors. Crazy!! Check back in 2 years for our tree's status =)